Among the highlights of the Ultimate Sports Guide's Baseball edition are postcards mailed to our office from San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's spring training fans, which in turn become two-page spreads.Look for comments from your friends shortly or, better yet, have a postcard from spring training? Send it in!

Board members of the San Francisco Giants Community Fund enjoy a field visit at Scottsdale Stadium. To the delight of everyone, Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford came over and signed baseballsfor the kids. Photo: Sue Petersen.

Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford steps into the batter's box against Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke last July at AT&T Park. Opening Day is just three weeks away on April 6, when Crawford and the Giants will take on the Arizona Diamondbacks in Arizona. Photo by Kenny Karst.

The Raiders honored defensive back Charles Woodson as the recipient of the 13th Commitment to Excellence Award. The annual event, held this year at the Oakland Hilton on March 14, recognizes a current Raiders player who best exemplifies the Pride and Poise of the Oakland Raiders. The recipient is chosen by his fellow teammates. Net proceeds were donated to a charity of Mr. Woodson's choice. Photo by Ed Jay.

The Stanford women's sand volleyball team wrapped up play at the NorCal Invitational recently as three pairs reached the semifinals at Stanford Sand Volleyball Stadium. To view a photo album of the meet, visit our Facebook Page and be sure to LIKE us.Photo by Rich Yee Photography.

The 15th annual Multi-Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place recently at the Waterfront Hotel in Oakland, honoring an array of distinguished athletes. Among the honored guests pictured above: Olympian and presenter Dick Fosbury (left); coach Jethro McIntyre, winner of the Outstanding Coaching Award (second from left); Ricki Stevenson, mistress of ceremonies (second from right); and Arif Khatib, Hall of Fame founder and president (right). To view a photo album of the ceremony, visit our Facebook page and be sure to LIKE us. Photo by Rich Yee Photography.

"They should move back first base a step to

eliminate all those close plays."

~John Lowenstein

MLB outfielder

SportsPulse

A team of Notre Dame alumni celebrated victory at The Basketball Tournament last year. This year's final will be on ESPN. Photo: Matt Thoman.

Year-old basketball event coming to ESPN

John Ourand

Courtesy: Sports Business Journal

This summer, ESPN will carry The Basketball Tournament -- a single-elimination tournament of 96 teams that carries a $1 million winner-take-all prize and lists sports industry veterans Tony Ponturo, Andy Dolich and Len DeLuca among its advisers.

ESPN will carry the 1-year-old event's semifinals (Aug. 1) and finals (Aug. 2) from New York. ESPNU will carry many of the games from the rounds of eight and 16; and ESPN3 will stream all of the games from the round of 16.

The one-year revenue-sharing deal will see TBT sell the title sponsorship around the event; TBT and ESPN will combine to sell presenting and in-game sponsorships. ESPN holds options to keep the tournament in 2016.

"This property came in through some folks that we know very well over the years," said Burke Magnus, ESPN's senior vice president of programming acquisition.

ESPN got to know the event last year, when it streamed some of the tournament's games via its ESPN3 service. Magnus said ESPN executives were impressed by the level of play, which included ex-NBA players and ex-college players mixed in with regular Joes.

"From a storytelling perspective, when there's high stakes, there's bigger interest -- like the World Series of Poker," Magnus said. "It's a big money game with people that you've heard of. At the same time, there's this everyman appeal to it as well."

Last year's tournament was won by a group of Notre Dame alums. Cornell's 2010 team that made the Sweet 16 entered the tournament last year, as did a team with former first-round NBA pick Hakim Warrick.

"It was like a 'Field of Dreams' moment where all these different teams were reuniting," said TBT founder Jonathan Mugar. "It was really special to see."

Confetti rains down on the winning Notre Dame alumni basketball team at the conclusion of the 2014 championship game. Photo: Matt Thoman.

This year's opening rounds beginJuly 10-12at regional sites in Los Angeles and Atlanta, and play will continueJuly 17-19in Chicago and Philadelphia. The round of 16 will take place in Chicago startingJuly 24, with the winners going on to New York. The tournament is still finalizing deals with gyms to house the various games.

The games will fit nicely with ESPN's schedule, filling its summer schedule with live programming, Magnus said.

"We get hundreds upon hundreds of pitches a year from things all over the spectrum in terms of their viability and their approach," Magnus said. "This stood out last year. We trusted the people that were involved in it and they delivered in the first year. There's a path to great growth here in terms of how it applies to potentially other sports. We're excited about it."

As sports columnist for 34 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, I always made a point of individual visits with a new coach or manager for Bay Area teams. So, when Bill Walsh was named football coach for Stanford in 1977, I arranged to have lunch with him after his news conference.

Walsh had been running the offense for Paul Brown's Bengals and already had a reputation for being an offensive genius, but I had never met him. Shortly after we started talking I thought, "Wow, this guy is really ahead of the curve!" From that point until his death in 2005, I never stopped listening and learning.

Walsh always wanted smart players so he selected Guy Benjamin as his quarterback; previous coach Jack Christiansen had not used Benjamin because Guy made no secret of the fact that he thought Christiansen was not smart. Walsh also saved the career of James Lofton, whom Christiansen had benched because he competed in track rather than come out for spring football drills. Lofton was eventually voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and credited Walsh for saving his career.

In his two years there, Walsh got Stanford into two bowl games, and I pushed for him to be hired as the 49ers coach. He inhterited a team that had been ravaged by Joe Thomas, but in his third year the 49ers won the Super Bowl and started a dynasty.

Because of my early support, Walsh gave me extra access. After the regular news conference, we would go up to his office and talk. Often, he'd tell me something and say, "I don't want my name attached to this." So, I'd use it under my name and look smarter than I was.

Even after he stopped coaching, I learned from him. When we were working on a book about his career with Benjamin, he and Guy would talk about how Walsh's teams would work against more predictable defenses. That was especially true of the Dallas Cowboys because their head coach Tom Landry had a very rigid defensive scheme. The Cowboys beat the 49ers badly in Walsh's second year, before he had the players he needed, but when he got the right players in 1981, he never again lost to Landry's Cowboys. They beat the Cowboys twice in the 1981 season, the second time in the NFC Conference game.

Walsh retired from the 49ers in 1988, but he remained active in other roles, with the 49ers and with Stanford. We kept talking and I kept learning.

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There are 328 days left until the Golden Super Bowl at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara,

on Feb. 7, 2016.

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